We show that the linearization of all exact solutions of classical chiral gravity around the AdS3 vacuum have positive energy. Nonchiral and negative-energy solutions of the linearized equations are infrared divergent at second order, and so are removed from the spectrum. In other words, chirality is confined and the equations of motion have linearization instabilities. We prove that the only stationary, axially symmetric solutions of chiral gravity are BTZ black holes, which have positive energy. It is further shown that classical log gravity—the theory with logarithmically relaxed boundary conditions—has finite asymptotic symmetry generators but is not chiral and hence may be dual at the quantum level to a logarithmic conformal field theories (CFT). Moreover we show that log gravity contains chiral gravity within it as a decoupled charge superselection sector. We formally evaluate the Euclidean sum over geometries of chiral gravity and show that it gives precisely the holomorphic extremal CFT partition function. The modular invariance and integrality of the expansion coefficients of this partition function are consistent with the existence of an exact quantum theory of chiral gravity. We argue that the problem of quantizing chiral gravity is the holographic dual of the problem of constructing an extremal CFT, while quantizing log gravity is dual to the problem of constructing a logarithmic extremal CFT.

String and particle braiding statistics are examined in a class of topological orders described by discrete gauge theories with a gauge group $G$ and a 4-cocycle twist $\omega_4$ of $G$'s cohomology group $\mathcal{H}^4(G,\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z})$ in 3 dimensional space and 1 dimensional time (3+1D). We establish the topological spin and the spin-statistics relation for the closed strings, and their multi-string braiding statistics. The 3+1D twisted gauge theory can be characterized by a representation of a modular transformation group SL$(3,\mathbb{Z})$. We express the SL$(3,\mathbb{Z})$ generators $\mathsf{S}^{xyz}$ and $\mathsf{T}^{xy}$ in terms of the gauge group $G$ and the 4-cocycle $\omega_4$. As we compactify one of the spatial %3D's directions $z$ into a compact circle with a gauge flux $b$ inserted, we can use the generators $\mathsf{S}^{xy}$ and $\mathsf{T}^{xy}$ of an SL$(2,\mathbb{Z})$ subgroup to study the dimensional reduction of the 3D topological order $\mathcal{C}^{3\text{D}}$ to a direct sum of degenerate states of 2D topological orders $\mathcal{C}_b^{2\text{D}}$ in different flux $b$ sectors: $\mathcal{C}^{3\text{D}} = \oplus_b \mathcal{C}_b^{2\text{D}}$. The 2D topological orders $\mathcal{C}_b^{2\text{D}}$ are described by 2D gauge theories of the group $G$ twisted by the 3-cocycles $\omega_{3(b)}$, dimensionally reduced from the 4-cocycle $\omega_4$. We show that the SL$(2,\mathbb{Z})$ generators, $\mathsf{S}^{xy}$ and $\mathsf{T}^{xy}$, fully encode a particular type of three-string braiding statistics with a pattern that is the connected sum of two Hopf links. With certain 4-cocycle twists, we discover that, by threading a third string through two-string unlink into three-string Hopf-link configuration, Abelian two-string braiding statistics is promoted to non-Abelian three-string braiding statistics.

The authors derive a McShane identity for once-punctured super tori. Relying upon earlier work on super Teichmuller theory by the last two-named authors, they further develop the supergeometry of these surfaces and establish asymptotic growth rate of their length spectra.

Distinct quantum vacua of topologically ordered states can be tunneled into each other, not by local operators, but via extended operators. The possible applications include condensed matter and quantum cosmology. We present a straightforward approach to calculate the partition function on various manifolds and ground state degeneracy (GSD), mainly based on continuum/cochain Topological Quantum Field Theories (TQFT), in any dimension. This information can be related to the counting of extended operators of bosonic/fermionic TQFT. On the lattice scale, anyonic particles/strings live at the ends of line/surface operators. Certain systems in different dimensions are related to each other through dimensional reduction schemes, analogous to decategorification. We consider situations where a TQFT lives on (1) a closed spacetime or (2) a spacetime with boundary, such that both the bulk and boundary are fully-gapped and long-range entangled (LRE). Anyonic excitations can be deconfined on the boundary. We introduce new exotic topological interfaces on which neither particle nor string excitations alone condensed, but only fuzzy-composite objects of extended operators can end (e.g. a string-like fuzzy-composite object formed by a set of particles can end on a special 2+1D boundary of 3+1D bulk). We explore the relations between group extension constructions and partially breaking constructions (e.g. 0-form/higher-form/“composite” breaking) of topological boundaries, after gauging. We comment on the implications of entanglement entropy for some of such LRE systems.

In the context of recently proposed holographic dualities between higher spin theories in AdS3 and 1+1-dimensional CFTs with W-symmetry algebras, we revisit the definition of higher spin black hole thermodynamics and the dictionary between bulk fields and dual CFT operators. We build a canonical formalism based on three ingredients: a gauge-invariant definition of conserved charges and chemical potentials in the presence of higher spin black holes, a canonical definition of entropy in the bulk, and a bulk-to-boundary dictionary aligned with the asymptotic symmetry algebra. We show that our canonical formalism shares the same formal structure as the so-called holomorphic formalism, but differs in the definition of charges and chemical potentials and in the bulk-to-boundary dictionary. Most importantly, we show that it admits a consistent CFT interpretation. We discuss the spin-2 and spin-3 cases in detail and generalize our construction to theories based on the hs[\lambda] algebra, and on the sl(N,R) algebra for any choice of sl(2,R) embedding.